


In the Aftermath

by bossxtweed



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Other, Referenced Time War (Doctor Who), Time War (Doctor Who)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:08:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25101421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bossxtweed/pseuds/bossxtweed
Summary: In the aftermath of the war, the Doctor lands on Earth, craving some sense of normalcy after destroying everything.Thinking about the Time War, Missy sets her TARDIS and stumbles upon the ninth incarnation of her oldest enemy and best friend.
Relationships: Ninth Doctor/Missy, The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who)
Kudos: 20





	In the Aftermath

Earth.

Blue sky, green grass, moving cars, loving people.

Stepping out of a vintage police phone box, the man sank to the ground. 

Silence. 

He stretched an arm out onto the pavement, feeling a low hum as cars drove past and the planet rotated, so full of life.

Alone.

The only way to put it all to rest after decades locked in an endless war.

The Time War to end all Time Wars.

He dipped his head, rested his chin against his chest, closed his eyes, and cried.

They hadn't gotten out.

His family---cousins, children, spouse---all destroyed by his own hands.

Best friends look out for each other, no matter what. Burning, aging, tying each other down, locking each other up---all such horrors have happened, and yet they come back to each other, time and time again. They are _equals_ and **_so much more.  
_ **

Four hearts, two souls, inextricably tied to one another.

The gray-haired Doctor was off, taking his student through the stars, and Missy _finally_ had her hands on a TARDIS of her own---a mark 45, more advanced than the Doctor’s and without all those _bugs_ in the software. After what happened with Mark, she refused to pilot another Mark-212. Let some **_other_** Time Lord perish at the hands of their own ship, thanks very much!

Perhaps she had spent too much of the last week thinking about the Time War. It always happened whenever she was alone---that, and her time locked in the asylums on Gallifrey, treated like dirt, made to suffer at the hands of her own people---and she absently set the coordinates, not caring where or when she landed. 

It could be in the middle of one of the worst battles of the Time War and she would march out with her sonic umbrella, shoot a few Daleks, and not bat an eye.

Her ship landed and she spared a glance at the console’s monitor.

Earth, 2005.

And she wasn’t alone.

A tell-tale _whoosh_ pulled the man’s attention towards---

He raised a fist to his mouth and bit back a cry. _No,_ he thought. _No. They’re---they’re_ **_all gone…_ **

They had grown apart after the Academy and the Doctor hadn’t paid enough attention to the Master at the onset of the Time War; part of him imagined they had fled, not caring for their family or friends or the planet at large, but another part had already numbered them among the dead.

Even those who name themself _Deathless_ must eventually reach an end. 

A woman stepped out into the alleyway through an impossible door in the surface of an antique grandfather clock. She wore what the man could only describe as something out of “Mary Poppins:” a purple ensemble with a dainty hat, kitten heels, and a purple umbrella held in both hands. 

Something screamed in the back of his mind.

 _It’s_ **_them,_ ** _it’s_ **_them,_ ** _it’s_ **_them._ **

Who _else_ would disguise their ship in such a manner?

He reshut his eyes and curled into himself, unable to help it as tears tracked their way down his cheeks.

The woman approached slowly, cautiously, and sank to the ground beside him. 

_“Theta,”_ she breathed in a dead language with a dead tongue. _“You’re fresh out of it, aren’t you?”_

He pulled back as she placed a hand on his shoulder and static shot up his arm. _She’s_ **_fake,_ ** he told himself; _they’re all_ **_gone_ ** _because of me…_

_“Theta,”_ she repeated, even more gently than the first time. _“I_ **_know_ ** _how you must be feeling, but you’ve_ **_got_ ** _to believe me: things_ **_will_ ** _get better. You’re_ **_nae_ ** _alone.”_

 _“Koschei,”_ he finally spoke in little more than a whisper. _“You’re just a figment of my imagination---I counted you among the dead.”_

She laughed. _“Did you, now? Because, from where_ **_I’m_ ** _standing, I’m the_ **_furthest_ ** _thing_ **_from_ ** _dead! I named myself with a_ **_purpose,_ ** _you know.”_

 _Yes,_ he thought, _Koschei the Deathless, who died several times over before we were_ **_eighty_ ** _as they sought a reprieve from it all---_

From _love_ and _pain_ and the wretched horror that had settled over them after looking into the Untempered Schism, _yes,_ Koschei the Deathless sought a reprieve from _everything,_ even if it meant losing their best friend.

Finally, he tilted his head to one side and asked, _“you’ve survived it, too?”_

 _“It was a few bodies ago for me, by now,”_ she smiles sadly. _“It drove_ **_everyone_ ** _who survived it_ **_insane,_ ** _and that_ **_includes_ ** _my TARDIS.”_

He snorted. _“Serves you right, I guess. Can’t call yourself_ **_Master_ ** _and not get into trouble.”_

 _“Hey!”_ she retorted, and were it the gray-haired iteration of her beloved idiot, she would have _smacked_ him, only she knew the horrors that came with the Time War, and she herself often flinched at the slightest provocation in those early days. _“It’s_ **_Mistress_ ** _in this body!”_

He laughed again, something more _genuine_ this time, and nodding, said, _“Right. ‘Mistress.’ I’ll have to remember tha’.”_

 _No you won’t,_ she thought, _I’ll have to take this all from you._

“I needed---I needed something _familiar,”_ he whispered, and his own voice sounded _weird_ in his ears. _Wha’ accent is that?_

“That’s understandable. I… wait, no. I can _nae_ tell you that--- _spoilers.”_

 _“Spoilers?”_ he repeated. “Were you about to tell me how _you_ got over the--”

She held up an index finger. “Hush now. I’ve **_never_** ‘gotten over the Time War’ and I suspect _you_ won’t, either; but I _do_ think it will get easier to manage, little by little. At first, you get up in the morning with the world weighing heavily on your hearts. Maybe you stay in bed for the first few days or even the first _week,_ and you try to read, or watch telly, or maybe you just sit. Not moving, not blinking, just…. sitting. Letting everything wash over you, the _gravity_ of it all. And then… it’s been a few weeks. You haven’t showered, or eaten, so you force yourself---”

The man cut her off, saying, “It was only a few hours ago for me.”

Missy’s blue eyes widened. 

_“Oh.”_

Silence settled over the pair of them, worsened by the occasional blaring of a car horn or the cooing of a bird as it settled on either of their TARDIS’. Cautiously, she held a hand out. Contact---to know she was real, to know he _wasn’t_ alone, that she would try to be there for him in the end.

He wiped at his eyes before taking her hand.

The warmth of it brought forth another wave of tears and she shifted to wrap her arms around him, pulling him close, and she sang in a low, sweet voice, an ancient lullaby, all-the-while nudging calm and compassion his way.

At his lowest point, the man no longer felt comfortable claiming the title of ‘Doctor’----no longer was he a _healer,_ but rather he had become _the Destroyer of Worlds,_ the _Oncoming Storm,_ the one who burned his own people to save the universe. 

But with the knowledge that _Koschei_ had survived, the Universe was, perhaps, not as bleak as he had imagined.


End file.
